Thursday, November 23, 2006

If you want to understand people who are on the autistic spectrum, you may find that there is a lot to be learnt from enjoying fictional autistic characters, especially those that were created by very talented authors, movie directors, screenwriters or actors who may also be on the autism spectrum.
Warning – The plot details of some movies and books follow; reading further may ruin your enjoyment of films and novels that you have not already seen.
Mr Spock
From the Star Trek television series and movies
Actor – Leonard Nimoy
Mr Spock is half human and half Vulcan. He works amongst humans but does not fit in socially as he follows the cultural values of Vulcans. In Vulcan society the emotions are very much repressed in favour of logic. Vulcans are very intelligent and they are supposed to age at a slower rate than humans. It has often been observed that some adult autistics have a physical appearance that is younger than their chronological age. In the TV show episode "Spock's Brain" Spock's brain is surgically removed and stolen by aliens, but the crew of the Enterprise track down and surgically replace Spock's brain. As soon as the brain is restored to normal functioning within Spock's body, Spock launches into a typically aspergian scholarly monologue. Kirk and Doctor McCoy (two conspiculuosly NT characters), then look somewhat bored, irritated and amused, and their eyes meet. Dr McCoy says jokingly "I should never have reconnected his mouth" and Kirk replies "Well, we took the risk doctor."
Memorable quotes –
“I find your arguments strewn with gaping defects in logic.” “That is quite logical captain.”

“I am not capable of that emotion.”

"Fascinating!"

Elwood Blues and “The Fat Penguin” Sister Mary Stigmata
From the movies The Blues Brothers and Blues Brothers 2000Actors – Dan Aykroyd*(also co-wrote screenplay) and Kathleen Freeman
Elwood is an unpretentious character with deadpan, unemotional body language and voice. He has a detailed knowledge of law enforcement and he copies officers by driving an ex-cop car, wearing FBI-type attire and maintaining a policeman-like demeanour. Technical details are important to Elwood, and he has unusual and specific food preferences. I think “The Fat Penguin” in these movies has an uncompromising and serious type of aspie personality. She likes to be the one controlling the situation when dealing with others, she has unrealistically high moral standards, not much of a sex life, has difficulty controlling her temper, and does not appear to smile much.The actor and co-screenwriter Dan Aykroyd* claimed in a 2004 NPR radio interview that he had been diagnosed as autistic as a child.

Memorable quotes from Elwood–
“They're not carpet tacks. They're dry wall nails.”
"I'll have some toasted white bread please.
(You want butter or jam on that, honey?)
No ma'am, dry.”
From the later sequel movie:“Listen Willie. You gotta understand these guys are orphan remnants of the post Perestroika Soviet secret police apparatus which until 1991 carried out its twisted interpretation of the original well intentioned Marxist-Leninist doctrine vis-a-vis state security which was massively corrupted by Lavrenta Beria in the thirties. Of course, once a mass populace ....” [Everyone listening to Elwood’s classically aspergian monologue of detailed obscure knowledge has a look on their face like they think Elwood is a bit strange].
Blues Brothers: the Official Trailer. YouTubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-xtJYIwfYo&feature=relatedTommy Walker
From the 1970’s rock musical and movie TommyActor – Roger Daltrey
This character is thought to have been based upon the discredited psychoanalytic theory of autism popularised by Bruno Bettelheim, which was circulating around the time when this musical was created. Nevertheless, this film can still be viewed as a confronting satire of the way profoundly autistic people are treated by society. Tommy has sensory and speech disabilities and has a savant talent (pinball playing), is labelled as crazy by his parent’s superficial friends, is subjected to a number of bizarre, insensitive and ineffective therapies, is exposed to sexual abuse, his special talents are exploited by his parents for financial gain in a kind of freak show and Tommy is also tortured for amusement by a bully. When Tommy develops the ability to speak this is hailed as a miracle cure and Tommy becomes a celebrity all over again, even though he is a bit of a moralistic bore. Many different typical situations in the lives of people with Kanner-type autism are covered in this movie.

Elliot Goblet
An Australian stand-up comedy character. The same actor played a very similar unnamed character, a council health inspector, in the Australian comedy movie Fat Pizza.
Actor – Jack Levi
The Elliot Goblet character that was most famous in the 1980s had an almost complete lack of body language and no expression in his voice, often wildly conflicting with his statements about his own emotional state. Goblet also displays a lack of awareness of fashion, divergent thinking and minor eccentricities.
Memorable quote from Elliot –
“I’m internally berserk” Memorable quote from the heath inspector –
“Look I couldn’t give a rat’s earlobe about your mother.”
Australian censorship rating of movie – MA 15+

Daria MorgendorfferFrom the animated US television series Daria
Voice - Tracy Grandstaff
Daria is an intellectually gifted teenage misanthrope with a monotone voice, non-existent body language and unusual interests. Sport, fashion and popularity are of little interest to Daria. Her more popular normal (neurotypical) sister Quinn is ashamed to be related to Daria, evident from the episode in which Quinn pretended in the presence of her friends that Daria was not her sister.
Memorable quotes –
“How come, even in my fantasies everyone’s a jerk?” “The world is my oyster... but I can't seem to get it open.”

“Life goes faster when you're somewhere else”
Daria - Favorite Quotes [HQ]. YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI4YaLJKFw4Lili von ShtuppFrom the classic Mel Brooks comedy movie Blazing Saddles
Actor – Madeline Kahn
This character is a comedic tribute to the legendary, courageous and opinionated entertainer Marlene Dietrich. This role earned Kahn an Academy Award nomination. Lili is frank, blunt and she has no time for other people's bulldust. Like many aspies Lili does not welcome casual kisses. One cowboy who tries to kiss Lili ends up with a knee in the groin, and when Hedley Lamarr tries to kiss Lili, she turns her back on him at just the right moment for him to crack his teeth on the back of her skull. Either Lili did that deliberately, or she does not read the body language of others with much ability or interest. On stage and off Lili shows no enthusiasm whatsoever for playing the role of the entertaining and endearing female stereotype, which makes one wonder how and why she ever got into show business. She has a very flat, monotone voice and a very aloof and cold manner, but we all know she really has a heart of gold.
Memorable scenes from movie –
Lili (on stage) "Hello, cowboy. What's your name?"Cowboy "Tex, Ma'am."Lili "Texmam? Well, tell me Texmam, are you in show business?"
Cowboy "Well no ma'am."Lili "Then why don't you get your fwiggin' feet off o' the stage.”[Lili kicks his feet off the stage forcefully and the audience roars with laughter]
Hedley Lamarr "For you, my dear."[Hedley gives Lili a bunch of rather unexceptional-looking flowers]
Lili "Oh, how owdinawy"
[Lili glances at the bunch and tosses it to the floor tactlessly]
Blazing Saddles - Lilly Von Schtupp. YouTube.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-pmpgrYQgs&feature=relatedSherlock HolmesFrom writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle* and various movies
Actors – Basil Rathbone and others
Professor Michael Fitzgerald on Sherlock Holmes: “Interestingly, Sherlock Holmes – a fictional character – shows the characteristics of a person with Asperger’s syndrome. One interpretation of the stories is that Holmes represents Conan Doyle and Dr Watson represents a non-autistic person.” (Fitzgerald 2005). Professor Fitzgerald has identified Conan Doyle* as an autistic person. Another professor has also identified Holmes as an autistic fictional character created by an author who was probably also autistic, economist Professor Tyler Cowen in his 2009 book Create your own economy. Sherlock Holmes has a savant-like brother named Mycroft who co-founded a gentleman’s club named the Diogenes Club, for shy and misanthropic gentlemen. Talking is banned in this (fictional) club. In real life Doyle was a member of the Athenaeum Club which included among its members three other famous people who have been identified as possible cases of Asperger syndrome. The evil Professor Moriarty character has also been identified as arguably autistic (Cowen 2009 p. 153). Autistic people are particularly talented at observing and analysing the world at a detailed level, and some are thought to excel at reasoning in a logical manner. These are talents displayed by Holmes.
Memorable quote –
“You know my method, Watson. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.”

Theo the "policy wonk"From the Australian "chick lit" novel Campaign Ruby by Jessica RuddThe author of this debut novel is the daughter of Australia’s Foreign Minister and deposed former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Kevin Rudd has described himself as a nerd and has also described himself as a "first class policy wonk". Rudd has been the subject of mostly good-natured joking about his personality and body language, including comparisons with a robot (Crabb 2007, 2010), with the nickname "Ruddbot"dating back to 2006 (Tilley 2007). Rudd has been criticised as a PM for having an unpleasant and autocratic leadership style and getting bogged down in details. The setting of this novel is an Australian federal political campaign and the main character is a young career-oriented lady who accepts a position as a political staffer during this campaign. Jessica Rudd worked closely with her father during the very successful 2007 election campaign in which Rudd became the PM. This book attracted much attention before it was published, shortly after the political coup that removed Rudd as PM, because in parts it mirrors real life political events in an uncanny way. Theo is the stereotypical borderline-autistic male nerd who wears glasses that have coke bottle lenses. Theo is brilliant and benign, but oddly unable to avoid saying tactless things. He is described in the book as being very deficient in social and emotional intelligence. Theo writes party policies off the top of his head, alone, on demand. In one scene, during a tense time, Theo paces back and forth while talking to himself, acting autistic in two different ways at once. Could K. Rudd have been an inspiration for this character, or maybe Wayne Swan?

Irena Dubrovna and the other cat people from the 1942 movie The Cat PeopleActor - Simone Simon Producer - Val LewtonThese people have an inherited, mysterious curse which causes those affected to become out of control (transform into black panthers and kill) when emotionally aroused. This group is like some exotic, feared, reviled and hunted secret society, a secrect society that is so secret that some of its members don't even know for sure if they are members. The main character fears that she is one of these people, and she falls into the control of psychiatry.
Cat People - my sister. YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5juHKu3Puyk&feature=related

Amy the little girl from the 1944 movie The Curse of the Cat People, sequel to The Cat PeopleActor - Ann Carter Producer - Val LewtonThe daydreamy Amy is a concern to her parents because she has no friends of her own age, instead she chooses to spend her time in the company of an imaginary friend, Irena, the dead cat-woman character from the previous movie. Amy has a special empathy for strange people; she also befriends two seriously troubled women in the neighbourhood, an elderly sufferer of Capgras delusion, possibly caused by dementia, and her resentful carer daughter. American Freudian child psychologists of the generation that gave us atrocities such as the "refrigerator mother" theory of autism/schizophrenia worked themselves up into a lather over this movie, but that doesn't detract from the quality of this film.

Finn the mute from the 1943 movie The Ghost ShipActor - Skelton Knaggs (a homely-looking character actor with a history of playing intellectually disabled characters) Producer - Val LewtonHe cannot speak, but he is surely no dummy.Memorable quote - “This is another man I can never know because I can never talk with him, for I am a mute and cannot speak. I am cut off from other men, but in my own silence I can hear things they cannot hear, know things they can never know.”

James Rourke
From the 1995 science fiction novel Distress by Australian "hard science fiction" author Greg Egan*
This book is set in the future. James Rourke is a minor character depicted toward the beginning of the novel. Rourke is the Media Liaison Officer for the Voluntary Autists Association, a lobby group campaigning for the legalization of surgical enlargement of the brain lesion underlying autism (fictional science) or the complete excision of the affected brain area, in a time when a medical patch-up "cure" of autism is possible for some who are partially autistic. Rourke’s arguments about the advantages and disadvantages of neurotypical and autistic psychology are interestingly similar to some pro-neurodiversity arguments and anti-neurotypical satire written by real life anti-cure autistic activists.

In the movie Blade Runner there is the unanswered question of whether the main character, Deckard, is unknowlingly a replicant, and in this story could the main character, Andrew Worth, unknowingly be an autist? The main character of Distress, Andrew Worth, has also been identified as having an autistic personality and this novel has been cited as one of the first to feature such a personality as a central element (Hassler & Wilcox 2008 p.18), many years before the publication of the best-seller novel The curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon.

The author Greg Egan* is known for his reclusiveness. He does not attend science fiction conventions nor sign books. At his web site he has explained that "There are no photos of me on the web." Egan was identifed and a possible case of Asperger syndrome in an article published in 2006 in the sci fi magazine Locus Online.

In the world depicted on the last page of the book the old deluded (neurotypical) way of thinking about human relationships has been mostly replaced by rational (autistic) wisdom, through biological change and cultural revolution. Now that’s what I call a happy ending!

Memorable quotes –
“But how much is understanding – and how much is a delusion of understanding? Is intimacy a form of knowledge – or is it just a comforting false belief?”
"What's the most patronizing thing that you can offer to do for people you disagree with, or don't understand?" "What's the most intellectually lazy way you can think of, to try to win an argument?"Bobo Gigliotti and his Mama
From the Australian comedy television series Pizza the movie Fat Pizza and other movies based on the series
Actors – Johnny Boxer and Maria Venuti
These characters are very negative but very funny adult autistic stereotypes. Bobo, a misanthropic pizza shop proprietor of Italian descent, is a very poor communicator, he lacks imagination, his social and private lives are disastrous, and he has serious anger-management issues. Bobo’s body language is stiff and limited, and his voice is very strange. Bobo’s employees believe he is “crazy” and a “tight-arse” (tight with money). Some autists are very reluctant to share or spend their money, and it is a common thing for autistics to be mistakenly regarded as mentally ill. Bobo appears to lack empathy for everyone except his naïve young wife and his mother. Bobo’s Asian wife was a mail-order bride found through the (fictional) website Desperado.com. Bobo’s divorced mother clearly has a personality very similar to Bobo’s. Bobo and Mama both act in a cold and hostile manner towards others, but the bond between them is very strong, probably because they are so much alike and so different to everyone else.
Memorable quote from Bobo –
“SHUT UP!”
Memorable quote from Mama –
“Grande puttana!”
Australian censorship rating of movie – MA 15+

Amélie Poulain, her boyfriend Nino Quincampoix and some other characters in the movie
From the French movie Amelie (this movie is known by a number of different titles)
Actors – Audrey Tautou and Mathieu Kassovitz
Two genuine eccentrics who were just made for each other, in a very eccentric and popular movie. Nino has had three strange and original detail-oriented and obsessive collecting hobbies, and one of them is central to the plot of this movie.
Australian censorship rating of movie – M 15+

Garth Algar, and his girlfriend Betty Jo in the sequel movie
From the movies Wayne’s World and Wayne’s World II
Actors – Dana Carvey and Olivia d’Abo
These characters are archetypal computer programmer, socially-awkward, spectacle-wearing nerds. They were made for each other.

Raymond BabbittFrom the movie Rain Man
Actor – Dustin Hoffman
No explanation needed. Hoffman won an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1988 for this role.
Willy Wonka, and his father in the 2005 movie
From the movies Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971, director Mel Stuart) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005, director Tim Burton*), both based on the Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate FactoryActors – Gene Wilder, Johnny Depp
Wonka is an intelligent, creative, childlike and very eccentric misanthrope. He wears odd formal attire. In the more recent version, Wonka has an odd, fake-looking smile and does not like to touch people, not even his own father. Wonka’s frosty father does not enjoy hugs any more than Willy does. Some autistic people find touching others uncomfortable, and are not natural smilers. In one scene Willy blurts out some nonsense words for no apparent reason, suggestive of Tourette’s syndrome, which is often found with Asperger syndrome, or this could be an example of the autistic behaviour of “talking to your self”. The characterisation of Willy Wonka by Johnny Depp is thought to borrow many traits from the legendary entertainer Michael Jackson. Some features of the Willy Wonka character also remind me of Lewis Carroll*, who, like Jackson, had a special affinity with children and could be described as a brilliant eccentric. Some autistic adults prefer the company of children or animals more than the company of (neurotypical) adults. Lewis Carroll* has been identified as an autistic by Prof. Michael Fitzgerald (Fitzgerald 2005, Fitzgerald 2004). There has been some speculation that the movie director Tim Burton* may be on the autistic spectrum (Sampson 2004, W.E.N.N. 2005), including speculation from Burton's partner actress Helena Bonham-Carter. There seems to be a pattern of main characters in Burton's movies who are loners or outsiders, and who have autistic traits. The author of the children's book that the movies were based on, Roald Dahl, was a misanthrope in real life.

Memorable quote from Willy Wonka –
"You can't run a chocolate factory with a family hanging over you like an old dead goose... no offense.”

Edward ScissorhandsFrom the movie Edward Scissorhands directed by Tim Burton*Actor – Johnny Depp
Edward is an outsider who is different and misunderstood. Cory Sampson has written an article in which this movie is analysed as a psychological allegory of a man “afflicted” with Asperger syndrome. Sampson also speculated that Burton may be on the autistic spectrum (Sampson 2004).
Jack SkellingtonFrom the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas also known as Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas directed by Henry Selick, based on the story by Tim Burton*Voice – speaking - Chris Sarandon, singing – Danny Elfman
Jack is the Pumpkin King of Halloweentown. He has a quaint, formal way of speaking. Jack has an almost naïve decency in his personality and an almost childlike enthusiasm for invention and innovation, but there’s also something a bit scary about Jack, if there weren’t he could hardly be the Pumpkin King. Jack is a single-minded and obsessive workaholic. He is always thinking about new ideas for the next Halloween, even on the 1st day of November. When Jack discovers the spirit of Christmas in Christmastown, he is fascinated but does not understand what it is. Jack tries desperately to understand Christmas by reverse-engineering and chemically analysing Christmas artefacts using the scientific method, but he still misses the point. This is an amusing example of an autistic person unsuccessfully trying to understand the emotional experiences of other people by using the methodology of systemizing.

The PrincessFrom the Hans Christian Andersen* story The Princess and the PeaThe princess is judged to be “a real princess” because of her sensory hypersensitivity, which enables her to feel discomfort from a pea being placed underneath many mattresses. Why the prince in this story and his royal family should all consider sensory hypersensitivity to be a defining characteristic of true nobility is an interesting question to ponder, but it should be noted that the author of this story has been identified as a person who had Asperger syndrome (Fitzgerald 2005) and therefore was likely to have had this sensory condition himself.

The Innocent Child Who Spoke the TruthFrom the Hans Christian Andersen* story The Emperor’s New ClothesAutistics are thought by some to have an unusual level of moral integrity with regard to telling the truth, or to be so outspoken and frank that it can be considered provocative or rude.

Pris, Roy Batty, Rachael and othersFrom the cult science fiction movie Blade Runner based on the novel by Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Actors – Daryl Hannah*, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young
These characters are replicants, artificially created humanoids made of flesh and blood but neurologically different to humans. Replicants are built to have a very limited life-span. Replicants are thought to lack the ability to empathize, but they do fall in love, (at least with other replicants), and some do not know that they are not human. Replicants are being hunted down for extermination following a mutiny against humans in which the replicants asserted their right to the same freedoms as those enjoyed by natural humans. Some autistic people identify with the replicant characters in this movie. Hauer’s performance as Roy Batty has been described as “… cold, Aryan, flawless.” Batty’s ruthlessness may seem cold, but it is obvious that he is seething with fury because of the replicants’ disadvantaged place in society. The bounty hunter Rick Deckard in the film may also unknowingly be a replicant.

The actress Daryl Hannah*, who played the replicant Pris in this movie was reportedly diagnosed as "borderline autistic" as a child (MailOnline 2007) and was recommended for institutionalization (Wood 2009).

Australian censorship rating of movie - M

The blonde alien children
From the British 1960 science fiction movie Village of the Damned based on the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. There was a 1963 sequel titled Children of the Damned which had similar characters and plot
All women of childbearing age in the village of Midwich simultaneously fall pregnant and the offspring are all strangely alike, blonde, highly intelligent and appear to be lacking in emotion. They do not bond emotionally with their human "parents" and "peers". As children they are feared and rejected by their community and come into conflict with their community. The hair and the fingernails of these strange children are studied scientifically and are found to be not normal. Although the story is that these kids are aliens, they are also in some ways like children who have a genetic syndrome. There is in fact at least one genetic syndrome on the OMIM database that has a symptom that can be detected by inspecting (pale) hairs under a microscope. Autism and autism-like behaviour/personalities are found in a number of genetic syndromes. The blonde brainiac kids are educated in a special segregated and highly accelerated class - in this respect they are like intellectually gifted children. In real life there appears to be a link between intellectual giftedness and the autistic spectrum, so in many ways these alien fictional characters mirror the lives of some autistic children.

Characters in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
In the book So odd a mixture: along the autistic spectrum in 'Pride and Prejudice' Phyllis Ferguson Bottomer identifies eight characters in Austen’s classic novel, including “Mr Darcy”, as being on the autistic spectrum.

Bartleby the Scrivener
From the short story Bartleby the Scrivener: a story of Wall Street by Herman Melville*. Professor Stuart Murray has identified this character as autistic in a conference paper. The author Herman Melville* has been identified as autistic in the book The genesis of artistic creativity: Asperger’s syndrome and the arts by Professor Michael Fitzgerald.Thomas Jerome NewtonFrom the 1976 movie The Man Who Fell to Earth directed by Nicolas Roeg, loosely based on the 1963 science fiction novel The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis.
Actor – David Bowie
Thomas Newton is a closet alien who came to Earth who makes a fortune on Earth from patenting technologies using advanced technical knowledge brought from another planet, but despite his huge wealth he remains an outsider from human society and human relationships. The metaphor of the alien on a strange planet has been used many times by autistics and others to describe the autistic’s place in society. One line of dialogue is thought to be a reference to the rock musical Tommy, which is explicitly about an autistic character, so the similarities between the alien character Newton and autistics are probably intentional. The pale, thin Newton has at least one sensory ability that humans do not have, and he often wears sunglasses to protect his eyes from glare. In one scene (in section 15 of the DVD) Newton rocks while sitting. Newton never “makes small talk”, unlike his human girlfriend Mary-Lou. Social climbing and romance with humans are not priorities for Newton. Despite his wealth, he has a human girlfriend who is uneducated and lower-class, and he does not really love her. Newton’s mind and heart are on another planet. Newton came to Earth as a part of an unsuccessful plan to save his (alien) people on his home planet, where he left a wife and children behind. Mary-Lou is terror-stricken when Newton strips off his human disguise and reveals to her his true alien nature. Newton appoints a human lawyer to do the face-to-face dealing with humans necessary for the management of his corporation, but he is betrayed by the lawyer and things go badly wrong for Newton. At one point in the movie Newton is imprisoned by medicos wearing white coats and fake smiles who unsuccessfully try to convince him that he is not an alien. Throughout all these hardships and disappointments Newton is stoic and not emotionally expressive. While the human characters age Newton remains young looking. Newton becomes a sad (but quiet and well-behaved) alcoholic who loses touch with the humans from his past. I think the life story of Sir Isaac Newton*, a loner who’s technical knowledge was way ahead of his time, was probably an influence on the creation of this alien character. I guess the character’s first name is from the rock musical character and the surname is from the physicist. Sir Isaac Newton* has been identified by two authors, one an autism expert, as having been an autistic (Baron-Cohen 2003, James 2004, James 2005).

The story of eccentric genius inventor Nikola Tesla*, who died in a state of poverty and at one time claimed to be an alien born to human parents, is thought to have been an inspiration for this character (Seifer, 1996). Tesla was a visual thinker and is thought by some to have been autistic. David Bowie has a history of playing autistic characters in movies; he portrayed famous autist Andy Warhol* in the film Basquiat and Bowie played Nikola Tesla* in the 2006 movie The Prestige.
In the original book the main character’s name is the same as in the movie, and the planet that he came from is named Anthea. In the book Antheans are superior in intelligence to humans and less emotional.
Quote about Newton from other characters in the movie –
Farnsworth “I don’t trust him.”Trevor “I don’t trust you.”
Farnsworth “That doesn’t alter my feeling for you.”Trevor “Has he ever been wrong?”
Farnsworth “No, but he’s a freak.”Question from Mary-Lou to Newton –
“Am I talking too much?”
Conversation between human Nate and Newton –
Nate “Don’t you feel bitter about it … everything?”
Newton “Bitter, no. We’d have probably treated you the same if you’d come over to our place.”Australian censorship rating of movie – R 18+

Morticia, Wednesday and Pugsley AddamsFrom the 1960s US comedy television series The Addams FamilyActors – Carolyn Jones, Lisa Loring and Ken Weatherwax
One of the funniest things about true eccentrics is that we often don’t realize that we aren’t perfectly ordinary and normal. I think Jones’ TV Morticia is more like an aspie than Anjelica Houston’s cinematic Tish in the movie Addams Family Values. The movie Morticia seems more smug, calm and self-confident, while the TV series Morticia was sometimes surprised or perplexed when confronted with normal people and their inexplicable ways, a typical aspie experience. Link to page containing image:
http://www.cryptochild.com/files/Resume/Morticia.jpgHarvey Denton, his wife Val and their twin daughters and Chloe and Radclyffe
From the UK television series The League of Gentlemen.
Mr Denton breeds toads, is very serious about cleanliness and speaks in an odd pedantic manner, coming up with some wonderfully original phrases. The uncanny twins are very serious and knowledgeable for their age, rather like Wednesday Addams multiplied by two. The family have some very strange ways.
Memorable quote from Harvey Denton:
“Conducting yourself in the solo symphony?”Link to guide to characters:
http://www.lunacynet.com/league/list_ep.htmlAustralian censorship rating of TV series DVD - M

Bernard MarxFrom the 1932 science fiction novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bernard Marx was born into one of the highest castes, and is therefore expected to be superior in intelligence (which he is), but in appearance and behaviour he does not fit in socially with his elite peers. There are rumours that there was some technical glitch in the artificial womb in which Bernard was created, which would make him slightly biologically sub-normal and non-standard in a society in which people are genetically engineered to be homogenous within their castes. He is a loner misfit in a hedonistic and superficial society in which promiscuous sex and drug use are almost compulsory. The enjoyment of solitude is frowned upon and profound emotional and intellectual experiences are considered to be unhealthy and anti-social.
Information about Brave New World
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_WorldInformation about Bernard Marx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_MarxJohn Rambo
From the movie Rambo: First Blood Part 2
Actor – Sylvester Stallone (also co-wrote screenplay)
Rambo has a classically autistic monotone voice (Stallone's natural voice), and also has minimal body language, despite the fact that he is filled with anger. He is a man of few words, but not lacking intelligence. Rambo appears to have more moral integrity than other characters in the movie, and he is very determined and single-minded. He expertly uses some very nice pieces of technology. The actor Sylvester Stallone has a son who has been diagnosed as autistic.

Australian censorship rating of movie – M 15+

Dr Anton Phibes, Mrs Victoria Regina Phibes and Vulnavia
From the movies The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again
Actors – Vincent Price, Caroline Munro (in photographs), Virginia North
All three characters are cold and aloof in their personal presentation. Phibes is highly intelligent and educated, obsessive, and has very strong emotions. He performs impassioned monologues to his deceased wife when he is alone. He executes his brilliant plan to avenge the death of his wife with great precision and no empathy for those who he blames. Phibes has absolutely no tolerance for people in the professions who are technically incompetent, an attitude displayed by some intellectually gifted aspies. Phibes’ social circle appears to be limited to only one person, his assistant Vulnavia. Perhaps this is why he misses his deceased wife so acutely. Mrs Phibes is identified by one character as having been a strange person. Vulnavia is mute but still works with Phibes very effectively in a two-person team. They have a relationship that seems to be very precisely planned and choreographed.
Memorable quote from Dr Phibes –
“Within twenty-four hours, my work will be finished, and then, my precious jewel, I will join you in your setting. We shall be reunited forever in a secluded corner of the great elysian field of the beautiful beyond!”
Australian censorship rating of Abominable Dr. Phibes – M 15+

Roderick Usher and his sister Madeline
From the story The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe and the movie of the same name
Actors – Vincent Price and Myrna Fahey
Roderick obsesses over what he believes is a severe character flaw inherited through the Usher family line. Roderick lives an isolated life within the crumbling family mansion.
Memorable quote –
"Madeline and I are like figures of fine glass. The slightest touch and we may shatter. Both of us suffer from a morbid acuteness of the senses..."
Australian censorship rating of movie – PG

Ada McGrathFrom the movie The Piano (director Jane Campion, soundtrack composed by Michael Nyman) Actor – Holly Hunter
Hunter won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1993 for this role.
This mute, musically gifted and strong-willed female lead character is thought by some to be autistic.

Dr Gregory House
From the US television series House
Actor – Hugh Laurie
House is the head of a hospital medical department, a diagnostic genius who is also a maverick and a misanthrope. People find him difficult or unpleasant to deal with. There has been some speculation as to whether this character is an aspie, and in one episode House speculated about this after dealing with an autistic child patient. In some ways the character resembles a stereotype of an intellectually gifted aspie, having an extensive medical knowledge, a love of solving medical puzzles, good attention to detail, and a disappointment with the failings of humanity. It appears that the character has been modelled on the classic fictional detective character Sherlock Holmes, a character who, like House, has a drug addiction, is highly intelligent and is a loner. The surnames “House” and “Holmes” are similar. Sherlock Holmes has been identified by an autism expert as an autistic character created by an autistic writer (Fitzgerald 2005). I personally think House is too articulate and intentionally offensive to be a typical adult autist. I don’t believe drug addiction is an autistic trait or is even more common in autistics than the general population.

The Kransky SistersAustralian musical comedy trio
Actors - Annie Lee, Christine Johnston and Michele Watt
Quote from press review by Alison Jane Miller "... their unusual musical act draws on naivete, spinsterhood and a somewhat Gothic existence to form the world of three eccentric sisters." The Kranskys are from rural Queensland and they rarely smile. They play instruments including a tuba, tambourines and a musical saw. They have a conservative and severe dress code reminiscent of the Blues Brothers. Librarians used to dress in the Kransky style in the time before the profession of librarianship went to the dogs.

Sam KekovichAlthough Sam Kekovich is indeed a real person (an ex-AFL footy player), the comedic persona presented in the Australian TV advertisements for Australian lamb (screened anually around Australia Day), is obviously exaggerated and is a characterization
Actor-Sam Kekovich
In the deliberately controversial advertisements Mr Kekovich delivers impassioned, slightly offensive and somewhat nonsensical monologues, using a choice of words that is often quaint and oddly formal, while staring expressionlessly at the camera, without as much as a blink or a twitch of a facial muscle, with a most unnatural style of eye contact, as though he is Elliot Goblet's redneck uncle. Australian comedy has certainly made great mileage out of the more amusing aspects of autistic body-language and communication styles. Did Kekovich steal his famous catch-phrase from a real autistic eccentric with political opinions? David “Screaming Lord” Sutch* was a British rock musician who co-founded a political protest party; the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. Sutch’s biography contains a believable claim that he had Asperger syndrome. One famous campaign slogan of Sutch’s was “Vote for insanity: you know it makes sense.”
Memorable Kekovich quote"You know it makes sense!"

Some more fictional characters that might belong in this list

some literary characters created by American author Sherwood Anderson*

Grace Cleave the main character from the semi-autobiographical novel Towards Another Summer by NZ author Janet Frame*

Bender from the animated American TV comedy series Futurama

Chauncey Gairdner from the movie Being There

Rik and Vyvyan from The Young Ones British 1980s TV comedy series (Vyvyan is a medical student and a punk with a noticeable lack of empathy. The Vyvyan character is clearly based on punk rockers such as Sid Vicious, who had a strange facial expression as does Vyvyan, and was in fact a top academic perfomer when we was in high school.)

Arthur Putey from Monty Python

Jack Isidore from the novel Confessions of a Crap Artist by Philip K. Dick, who was a very strange person

Bill Lundborg from the novel The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick

Characters in Ayn Rand novels (Ayn Rand was an odd duck and a misanthrope and has been identified as having had Asperger syndrome by a number of commentators.)

D-Fens / William Foster in the Hollywood movie Falling Down (An angry engineer who dresses in a conservative, nerdy style feels that the world has treated him badly despite his attempts to do the right thing in good faith. Autism has been linked with engineering in some scientific studies, and autistic people often display a bad temper and a plain or conservative style of dress. D-Fens clearly identified himself with his job as an engineer in a defense industry, and is probably left feeling that he has no social identity or place in society after he is retrenched from his job.)

Lisbeth Salander victimized computer hacker with a photographic memory and deadpan facial expressions from the bestselling Millenium Series novels by Steig Larsson, including The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. These novels were made into movies in which the Salander character was played by Noomi Rapace. Apparently the Salander character is explicitly identified as a possible case of Asperger syndrome in at least one of these novels. The author is quoted as saying this character is what he imagines the Pippi Longstocking character would be like as a grown-up.

Pippi Longstocking a character in a series of childrens' books by Swedish author Astrid Lundgren

The Deranged Cousins by Edward Gorey, who was a loner and an odd duck.

Gross, Terri. (2004) Comedian – and writer – Dan Aykroyd. Fresh Air. NPR. November 22 2004.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4181931[discusses his childhood diagnosis at around 29 minutes into this radio interview]
Hassler, Donald M. & Wilcox, Clyde (2008) New boundaries in political science fiction. University of South Carolina Press, 2008.
[The autism of two fictional characters in the novel Distress by Greg Egan is discussed, can be previewed at Google Books]
James, Ioan (2005) Asperger syndrome and high achievement: some very remarkable people. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice keeps me from feeling isolated.
- Albert Einstein *

I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.
- Kurt Cobain

He was the best friend I’ve ever had ...
- Courtney Love *, widow of Kurt Cobain

Just being alive is working at a part you don’t want to do.
- Andy Warhol *

Be yourself. Everybody else is already taken.
- Sara/Claes Lund

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
- Oscar Levant *

I did not know Henry for twenty years.
- the landlord of reclusive artist Henry Darger *, quoted in the book Not even wrong: adventures in autism by Paul Collins.

This is another man I can never know because I can never talk with him, for I am a mute and cannot speak. I am cut off from other men, but in my own silence I can hear things they cannot hear, know things they can never know.
- Finn the Mute, a character played by Skelton Knaggs, from the 1943 movie The Ghost Ship, produced by Val Lewton.

Men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who, being gifted and full of nervous power, are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea, and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity.
- Sir Francis Galton FRS *

It's true that I've driven through a number of red lights on occasion, but on the other hand, I've stopped at a lot of green ones but never gotten credit for it.
- Glenn Gould * quoted in Wondrous strange: the life and art of Glenn Gould by Kevin Bazzana

If they can take it for ten minutes, then we play it for fifteen. That's our policy: always leave them wanting less.
- Andy Warhol * discussing the Velvet Underground

IBM computer with a Garbo accent....
- a description of the voice of Nico (Christa Paffgen) *, friend of Andy Warhol * and member of the Velvet Underground, quoted in the book Do you want to dance and blow your mind with the Velvet Underground: an illustrated history of a walk on the wild side. by Jim DeRogatis et al

People are about as important to me as food. As I grow older, I find more and more that I can do without them.
- Glenn Gould *

Do you realise that to many men it makes a vast and profound difference whether or not the things about them are as they appear?
- H. P. Lovecraft *

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success .... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.
– Nikola Tesla *

The average man's opinions are much less foolish than they would be if he thought for himself.
- Bertrand Russell *

You're all a bunch of sheep. Can't you go baa?
- Craig Nicholls * of the Vines, speaking to a concert audience

Most people are sheep, and they need the support of others ...
- Bobby Fischer * genius chess player

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
- Oscar Wilde

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
- Albert Einstein *

Hypocrisy in search of social acceptance erodes your self-respect.
- James Watson, Nobel Prize winner quoted in New Scientist

In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
- John Kenneth Galbraith

I don't like my thinking done for me. Thinking's not much good if it's second-hand. I just want to think afresh, think sideways, and not be trapped in anybody else's poems. I want to make my own poems.
- Les Murray * highly respected Australian poet

I didn't have that tendency to conform and I found it easy not to conform. I didn't scare easily. And it amazed to see that people who I respected, who I liked—would just fit in without ever really thinking about the consequences of what they did.
- Helen Dale/Darville/Demidenko *

I am not totally lacking in the motivation to conform; it’s just weak.
-Judith Rich Harris, controversial psychologist, on p. 200 of her book No two alike.

I did not think of myself as original: I merely said what I thought.
- Janet Frame *

Left equals good. Art equals Left. Pop stars and artists are meant to be so original. So how come everyone has the same opinion?
- George Passmore, artist (one half of Gilbert and George)

There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.
- John Kenneth Galbraith

If you skip the racial part he was trying to make a valid point which science to this very day doesn't want to look at.
- Joel Shurkin, biographer of William Shockley *

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
- Jonathan Swift *

People do not have a right to be free of offence.
- Helen Dale/Darville/Demidenko *

Even Beethoven had his critics. See if you can name three of them.
- a line from the Australian movie Chopper
We cannot escape irrationality, for it’s the price we pay for relying so heavily on the views of others.
- Kim Sterelny, in the book Richard Dawkins: how a scientist changed the way we think

Until proven otherwise, we should assume that consciousness doesn’t play a role in human behaviour.
- Robert Provine, psychologist, of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, quoted in New Scientist

Thinking is the hardest thing known to man, which is the reason it is so rarely done.
- Henry Ford *, quoted in the book Any colour – so long as it’s black by John Duncan

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
- Winston Churchill

If someone were to start a Society for the Prevention of Thought, he would swiftly make a fortune from the subscriptions.
- Theodore Dalrymple, author and prison psychiatrist, from his book Second Opinion

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
- Albert Einstein

I am free of all prejudices. I hate every one equally.
-W. C. Fields

... I'm sort of anxious about the world. I'm more frightened about humans than anything else, I think. They're the most dangerous, and violent, and irrational creatures on the planet, I think.- Reg Mombassa/Chris O’Doherty *, NZ-born Australian rock and roll musician and artist, from the TV show Talking Heads, broadcast July 2007 http://www.abc.net.au/talkingheads/txt/s1982349.htmIf you can't say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
- quote attributed to Dame Edna Everage

Politics is Hollywood for ugly people.
- Mark Latham

Politics is just show business for ugly people.
- Jay Leno

Well, I was the first. If anyone can be shown to be the one that really did his own work and created this strategy from scratch, it'd be me....A physician with no true education in anything Wall Street. Completely self-taught, working by myself.
- Michael Burry * , American hedge fund founder and manager who correctly predicted the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and figured out how to make a fortune from this for himself and his investors, despite pressure to sell from frightened investors. This quote is from an email quoted in the book The greatest trade ever by Gregory Zuckerman, p. 269

A money manager does not go from being a near nobody to being nearly universally applauded to being nearly universally vilified without some effect.
- Michael Burry * (see above) quoted in the book The greatest trade ever by Gregory Zuckerman, p. 166

If I am looking at you, that's the one time I know I won't be listening to you.
- Michael Burry * (see above) quoted in an article by Michael Lewis in Vanity Fair magazine April 2010http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/04/wall-street-excerpt-201004It is the psychology of those who have not bothered to learn psychology ...
- Mario Bunge writing about psychoanalysis in New Scientist

Leadership is always a lonely race. Anyone honest about their reflections on that reaches the same conclusion....I’ve always just been a person who believes in rowing his own race, that is, doing what you believe to be the right thing, doing it with vigour, doing it with conviction and doing it with determination.
- former Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd quoted by David Marr in "Power trip: the political journey of Kevin Rudd." Quarterly Essay. Number 38, p. 40.

Kevin has worked hard at becoming normal. He’s come close but I don’t think he’ll ever quite get there, But I don’t think you want a Prime Minister to be normal, do you?
– Wayne Goss, former Premier of Queensland, quoted in the book Inside Kevin07: The people, the plan, the prize by Christine Jackman.

How could you say someone like us is boring?
- ex-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, on the Rove TV show, September 2008

If Mark had become Prime Minister, he would have had around him an absolutely first-class front bench which would have taken care of any emergency situation that arose....If anything went seriously wrong with the leadership while we were in office, we would have dealt with it.
- Kim Beazley about Mark Latham, quoted in the 2008 book "Power plays" by Laurie Oakes, p. 326-7

I’d rather read a book on a plane than talk to the fellow next to me.
- former President John F. Kennedy

Autism has been here all along. Considered as an evolutionary condition with far-reaching social implications, its full presence and impact remain hidden in plain sight, unrecognized and uncredited.
- Mark Stairwalt writing at Shift Journalhttp://www.shiftjournal.com/

There is, in fact, no better way to produce shallow and superficial people than to let them live their lives entirely in the open, without concealment of anything.
- Theodore Dalrymple, author and prison psychiatrist, from "All Sex, All the Time" City Journal. Summer 2000

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde

He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
- Winston Churchill

We are all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.
- Tennessee Williams, playwright, quoted in Advanced banter: the QI book of quotations by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson

We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only though our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone.
- Orson Welles *

Ian is a strange child. He likes to be away by himself and can never be found when he is wanted.
-Rose Fairweather, mother of Australian artist Ian Fairweather

There’s only one person in the world who could look OK in that colour of lipstick, and his name is Ronald McDonald.
- what Lili Marlene wishes she had said to one of her particularly dislikeable work supervisors

What brings you here? I know it couldn't have been an invitiation.
- David Letterman on The Late Show

You know, if it weren't for the caffeine, I'd have virtually no personality whatsoever.
- David Letterman

In my game, a flush beats a full house.
- sign seen on the back of a plumber's van

Autism, clearly, is a condition that has always existed, affecting occasional individuals in every period and culture.
- Oliver Sacks, quoted from the chapter “Prodigies” in the book An anthropologist from Mars

I always say to the other guys, if you want to throw a TV out of a hotel room window, then do it just before you leave the hotel, because there might be something you want to watch.
-Craig Nicholls from a 2004 article in The Guardian by Alexis Petridis http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/mar/05/popandrock

Two obsessions are one too many.
- Dr James Watson, Nobel Prize winner

Nothing attracts money like the quest for a cure for a terrible disease.
- Dr James Watson, Nobel Prize winner and ex-president of a major US medical research organization, on page 313 of his book Avoid boring people.

So, I think, while I would prefer to believe otherwise, I guess my experience with my two and a half year old twin daughters who were not given dolls and who were given trucks, and found themselves saying to each other, look, daddy truck is carrying the baby truck, tells me something.
- Lawrence Summers *, American economist, Director of the White House's National Economic Council and controversial former President of Harvard University

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
- Winston Churchill

The autistic child has become the symbolic point of convergence of two major currents of contemporary anxiety: anxiety about early childhood development and anxiety about impending environmental disaster.
- Dr Michael Fitzpatrick in the book Defeating autism: a damaging delusion.

I do not plead guilty to a shallow view of human nature, when I propose to apply, as it were, a foot-rule to its heights and depths.
- Sir Francis Galton FRS * , pioneer of science and psychology and one of the first to describe synaesthesia

Ever wonder if illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup?
- John Mendoza

Do people who don’t have coloured letters synaesthesia get the full effect of alphabet soup?
- Lili Marlene, colour-grapheme synaesthete

Reason is a tool. Try to remember where you left it.
- John Clarke

The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible.
- Paul Dirac OM, FRS, * physicist

I was lucky, I went to good schools, I had excellent teachers. I was in the right place in the right time.
- a very modest Nobel Prize winner, Paul Dirac OM, FRS *

We came, we saw, we concreted.
- motto of ex-European migrant Australian homeowners

I had to kill her, doctor, or I don’t know what I would have done.
- a man who has just murdered his lover, quoted by Theodore Dalrymple in his book In praise of prejudice

If you're going through hell, keep going.
- Winston Churchill

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but overacuteness of the senses?
- from The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

Contrary to widespread belief, we do not think exclusively in language.
- Steven Pinker

It should now be up there in neon lights: contrary to Descartes, you don’t need language to think. Cognition is one thing and language is another.
– Herb Terrace of Columbia University, quoted in New Scientist

Autists are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It's that you are destroying the peg.
- Paul Collins, in the book Not even wrong: adventures in autism
… the self is an hallucination hallucinated by an hallucination.
- Douglas Hofstadter, quoted in New Scientist

… the cognitive system underlying theory of mind also seeks to attribute intentionality and meaning, even where there is none.
- excerpt from a story about religion by Helen Phillips in New Scientist
They cheer me because they all understand me, and they cheer you because no-one understands you.
- Charles Chaplin to Albert Einstein * at a movie premiere, quoted in the book Cultural amnesia by Clive James

The lessons of history don’t suit our wishes: if they did, they would not be lessons, and history would be a fairy story.
- Clive James, from his book Cultural amnesia

Some of the worst mistakes in my life have been haircuts.
- Jim Morrisson

We are convinced, then, that autistic people have their place in the organism of the social community. They fulfil their role well, perhaps better than anyone else could, and we are talking of people who as children had the greatest difficulties and caused untold worries to their care-givers.
- Hans Asperger * from Chapter 2 of Autism and Asperger syndrome edited by Uta Frith

I'm always happy when I'm protesting.
- Richard Stallman *

He was one of the unthanked benefactors of his race, who was patiently teaching and serving mankind, whilst they were shrinking from his coldness, or mocking his peculiarities. . .
- biographer George Wilson describing Henry Cavendish * quoted by Oliver Sacks

Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators.
- Richard Dawkins

The autistic personality is an extreme variant of male intelligence.
- Hans Asperger * from page 84 in Chapter 2 of Autism and Asperger syndrome edited by Uta Frith

Any man who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
- Samuel Goldwyn

I told him, ‘You are paranoid,’ and he said that paranoids can be right.
- Pal Benko recounting a conversation with Robert “Bobby” Fischer *

Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you.
- part of a song lyric by the rock band Nirvana

My mother refused to give me colouring books as a child. She probably saved me, 'cause when you think about it, what a colouring book does is completely kill creativity.
- attributed to David Lynch, movie director

He who laughs last laughs longest.
- corny line from a 1960s TV comedy series

Wagner’s music isn’t as bad as it sounds.
- unattributed quote from the book Cultural amnesia by Clive James.

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.
- Jean Giraudoux

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
- George Orwell *

I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, I speak like a child.
- Vladimir Nabokov, author and synaesthete

Show me a cultural relativist in a jet aircraft at 35 000 feet, and I'll show you a hypocrite.
- Richard Dawkins

I looked and looked but I didn't see God.
- Uri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut and the first person to orbit the Earth

The situation varies from country to country, but there exists no autism society that is about autistic people.
- Michelle Dawson

The detached individual, who does not quite conform to the prevailing norms, was a part of the stereotype of the twentieth-century intellectual.
- Frank Furedi in Where have all the intellectuals gone?: Confronting 21st century philistinism

In fact, if I hadn't been smart, I probably would have been thrown in the garbage, basically. But because I was obviously smart, they couldn't just say, "This is a manufacturing failure; get rid of it."
- Richard Stallman * founder of the free software movement

Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.
- Rosalind Franklin *

When we try to envision another's happiness, we suffer from arrogance and a poverty of imagination.
- George Johnson

One could conclude that the towering edifice of ABA therapy is built on a total lack of empathy. Empathy is, after all, the ability to imagine things from someone else’s perspective.
- Alyric

“I don’t think I’m at all eccentric” That is the hallmark of a true eccentric – not thinking you’re at all eccentric, even when your every thought, word, and deed seems to set you apart from the rest of the world.
- Kevin Bazzana, in the biography Wondrous strange: the life and art of Glenn Gould *

You might think you're the most ordinary person in the world. The world begs to differ.
- Anneli Rufus, in her book Party of one: the loners’ manifesto

Other people think I'm eccentric, but I'm not eccentric. I'm quite normal; it's all the other people who are eccentric - and there's plenty of them, in those straight suits, collars and ties - they're the eccentric ones.
- David (Screaming Lord) Sutch * quoted in the biography The man who was Screaming Lord Sutch by Graham Sharpe

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.
- John Stuart Mill, philosopher

No mind should have to beg to differ.
- Mel Levine M.D.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
- Oscar Wilde

A hard man is good to find.
- Mae West

When I think about people being treated badly just because of their body language, I'm in no smiling mood.
- Lili Marlene

March separately but strike together!
- Leon Trotsky

Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be cured by a daily application of old Greek myths to their private parts.
- Vladimir Nabokov on Freud

Harden the *uck up Australia!
- Chopper, comedy character from The Ronnie Johns Half Hour

Most maths departments I've been in have at least one person who is clearly weirder than I am.
- attributed to Professor Richard Borcherds *

Another roof, another proof.
- Paul Erdos * famous mathematician who had an unusual academic drifter lifestyle

A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.
- Alfred Renyi, one of Paul Erdos’ many collaborators

I remember once going to see him when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. "No," he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.
- mathematician G. H. Hardy * remembering legendary mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan *

Some of you may have met mathematicians and wondered how they got that way.
-Tom Lehrer

The world is full of people who can’t do simple household chores properly, and need to be cared for by other people. They are called “husbands”.
- Lili Marlene, housewife

For years we [British psychiatrists] have been prescribing drugs to our patients that we wouldn't dream of taking ourselves or giving to our families
- Professor Robin Murray (Royal College of Psychiatrists): 1997: Insights into Schizophrenia: Solian (amisulpiride) symposium

It is superb, it smells old-fashioned, like Brahms in a world of hip hop.
- Luca Turin (known as "the emperor of scent", referring to the legendary Guerlain fragrance Mitsouko)

I like very much the singer Madonna. I think very much that it is a credit to the West that a transvestite can become so popular.
- Borat, TV and movie comedy character

I never fall apart because I never fall together.
- Andy Warhol *

They say isolation drives you crazy. Sure it does – when you can’t get enough of it.
- Anneli Rufus, in her book Party of one: the loners’ manifesto

I don't belong to any club or group. I don't fish, cook, dance, endorse books, sign books, co-sign declarations, eat oysters, get drunk, go to church, go to analysts, or take part in demonstrations.
- Vladimir Nabokov, author and synaesthete

Most people help to make the world go round, but only an elite few make the world go forward.
- Lili Marlene

...I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.
- Vladimir Nabokov, author and synaesthete

Consumption today consists of people spending money they don’t own, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like.
- Dr Clive Hamilton

Regrets? I've got no regrets... except that I was born a woman instead of a man.
- Nico (Christa Paffgen) *

I am at heart a gentleman
– Marlene Dietrich

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.
- Marlene Dietrich

Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places
- attributed to Garrison Keillor

We’re perfectly well-adjusted, just not to their frequency.
- attributed to Anneli Rufus

Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.
- Dame Edna Everage

... there's a real science to eye contact, and the only reason that I'm so good at it now is because I've practiced the technique for hours with a room full of blow-up dolls.
- Elliot Goblet, stand-up comedy character **

You say the truth is never black and white, but I want to know how you can be so sure.
- Lili Marlene

…. a world without humour is … Germany.
- Shaun Micallef

Life goes faster when you're somewhere else.
- Daria Morgendorffer, character in the animated TV series Daria **

Also, I like public transport because I like to stare at people for long periods of time. This is a luxury that you just can't enjoy in the confines of your own motor car.
- Elliot Goblet, stand-up comedy character **

I haven't read a book in my life ...
- Victoria Beckham

You say I’m a bitch like it’s a bad thing.
- witty quote from The B Word calendar

Just give me the coffee and no one gets hurt.
- witty quote from another calendar